much to go on. I mean “a bit like a shell” could mean just about anything.’
Everett turns from the mirror. ‘What sort of shell?’
‘A snail, apparently. All I keep thinking is Brian from The Magic Roundabout –’ She stops, mid-smile. ‘What?’
Ev fishes her phone out of her pocket, swipes to the web, then holds it out. ‘Is it possible it was this?’
Somer’s eyes widen. ‘Oh my God. Shit – yes.’
Ev takes a deep breath. ‘Email this over to your witness and ask her. And then we need to find Fawley.’
* * *
Adam Fawley
5 April 2018
09.19
I’m still in the shower when the doorbell goes. By the time I make it downstairs ten minutes later Somer and Everett are standing awkwardly in the kitchen as Alex fiddles about with the kettle. Fussing is not like her, but it’s obvious enough why she’s doing it now: she wasn’t expecting company and she’s wearing a favourite but now tight-fitting jumper which makes it quite obvious she’s pregnant. When Somer catches my eye she looks quickly away, her face flushed; she must be remembering what she said a couple of days ago. About the reasons people might not tell the whole truth.
‘Oh, Adam – there you are,’ says Alex with manifest relief. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
‘Sir,’ says Somer as soon as the kitchen door closes, ‘the other day, I didn’t mean –’
‘Forget it – it’s not important. What is it?’
‘We may have something,’ says Everett. ‘Remember Ashley Brotherton?’
I frown. ‘I thought we’d discounted him?’
‘We did.’
‘So what’s changed?’ I look at Somer and then back at Everett. ‘He had an alibi, didn’t he? His bloody van had an alibi.’
‘A woman rang in first thing this morning,’ says Somer. ‘She said she saw a van on the Marston Ferry Road the morning Faith was attacked. She didn’t remember much apart from the fact that the van was white and had a logo like a shell on the side. Baxter’s been trying to track it down but it was looking like a wild goose chase. Only then –’
‘Only then Erica mentioned it to me,’ says Everett. She holds out her mobile. It’s a picture of a van, and even though the logo on the side isn’t a shell, I can see why you might remember it that way, especially if you only got a glimpse. It’s a ram’s head with a huge curling horn. In profile. And below it a five-bar gate surrounded by daffodils that looks like something out of Enid Blyton.
Ramsgate Renovations. The same company Ashley Brotherton works for.
‘I emailed it to the witness,’ says Somer, ‘and she’s fairly sure this is what she saw. Not a hundred per cent, but pretty certain.’
‘And the only Ramsgate van that could have been on the Marston Ferry Road that morning is the one Ashley Brotherton drives,’ Everett reminds me. ‘All the rest are accounted for.’
‘But even if it was his vehicle,’ says Somer, ‘it can’t have been him. Fifty different people put him at the Headington crematorium that morning.’
‘So either he’s worked out how to be in two places at the same time or he let someone else borrow that van.’
‘It’s the most obvious explanation,’ says Ev. ‘Though he told me point-blank that no one else could have been driving it that day.’
‘Then it’s someone he cares about – someone he’s prepared to lie for. A relative? A mate? A mate who could be that mystery boyfriend of Sasha’s we still haven’t ID’d? Maybe that’s the connection between those two girls.’
‘It wouldn’t even need to be a boyfriend,’ says Somer. ‘It could just be someone she met once or twice – someone she thought it was safe to get into a vehicle with.’
‘Or he could have just attacked her from behind and dragged her off the street,’ says Ev grimly. ‘Like he did to Faith. He didn’t have to actually know either of them. They could simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
But I’m not so sure.
‘Sasha, yes, absolutely. That had to be random – there’s no way anyone could have known she’d be in that precise spot that night. But Faith was different: I think that was premeditated. I think the person who assaulted her planned it very carefully, and that may well have included making damn sure he wasn’t in his own vehicle when he did it.’
Everett nods. ‘If he wanted to cover his tracks – why not.’
‘Which leaves us with two possibilities,’ says Somer. ‘Either Brotherton knows exactly who borrowed